


i'm gonna love you endlessly

by greyhavensking



Series: f(ace) the truth [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Asexual Bucky Barnes, Asexuality, Attempt at Humor, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Pietro Maximoff is a Little Shit, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Tony Stark Is Not Helping, this may not be the kindest portrayal of tony but I don't think it's out of character, very much MCU Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29205735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyhavensking/pseuds/greyhavensking
Summary: “Wait, so Rogers here likes sex, and you… don’t.”“That’s the general idea, yeah,” Steve says.“But… how does that even work?”“I’ve gotten real friendly with my right hand,” Steve says, splaying his fingers to demonstrate. Then he lifts his other hand up. “With both hands, actually. Being ambidextrous sure comes inhandy.”(or, the one where Bucky is ace, Steve isn't, and they're disgustingly in love)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff
Series: f(ace) the truth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2197653
Comments: 22
Kudos: 169





	i'm gonna love you endlessly

**Author's Note:**

> This is the ace!Bucky fic I was talking about a little while ago in tumblr, and it is entirely self-indulgent. Warning to anyone who really likes Tony: he's kind of an ass in this, but like, in a way that fits with the MCU version of his character. But that being said, like I wrote in the tags, it's not the kindest take on his personality, so I don't really want to upset anyone who sees him differently than I do. 
> 
> Also Pietro is alive because I say so. 
> 
> Title is from "I'm Gonna Love You" by David Cook; this is lovely song and it suits Steve and Bucky super well in my opinion, so give it a listen if you're interested!

It starts, like most things with the Avengers do, with Tony.

More specifically, it starts with Tony’s inability to let things lie.

Steve and Bucky don’t often find themselves in the Tower these days; they have a brownstone in Brooklyn (and a few safehouses scattered around the country, at Bucky’s insistence, though Steve had been unusually agreeable about it and only argued a little over the one Bucky wanted in Florida) and it’s where they spend most of their down time, now that Bucky’s more or less cleared for civilian life. There may be the occasional foray into the world of vigilante justice but what the US government doesn’t know won’t hurt Bucky. Regardless, Avengers Tower isn’t home for either of them, and so they only come around when the others feel the need to  _ reinvigorate their team spirit _ , or however Pepper phrased it, diplomatic as ever. What it really meant was that people were beginning to question whether or not Steve and Bucky were even alive and demanding physical proof of their vitality.

Steve minds it less than Bucky does, but can’t quite hide his displeasure as well as Bucky, which leads to a lot of heckling from the rest of the team. Steve’s a good sport about it, usually — he’s got thick skin from a lifetime of dealing with assholes and bigots, and as exhausting as some of the Avengers can be they really don’t compare to Steve’s childhood bullies. Or literal nazis, for that matter. That doesn’t mean Bucky’s all that fond of just standing by when he knows Steve’s uncomfortable, but Steve has always wanted to fight his own battles, and that’s one thing that hasn’t changed in seventy-some years, so Bucky remains as hands-off as he can make himself.

Most days. Today is, sadly, not going to be one of those days.

The lounge — which takes up an entire floor of the Tower and seems to be one that Tony spent an obscene amount of time and money on to meet his exacting (ridiculous) standards — is only occupied by a handful of people right now. Thor’s off-world, has been for the better part of the month; Bruce has been gone a week, speaking at some conference on an incredibly niche subject that, while objectively fascinating, sailed right over Steve  _ and  _ Bucky’s heads; Sam has family over and told them in no uncertain terms that unless the world was  _ literally ending  _ he wasn’t to be disturbed; Natasha and Clint are out on an assignment and aren’t expected back until tonight at the earliest. At the moment, that leaves Steve, Bucky, and the Wonder Twins, who haven’t spoken a word aloud in over an hour but are definitely having some sort of minor argument judging by the lively expressions they’ve been making at one another. Bucky has no damn clue what’s got them so riled up but he’s more than content just to watch them hash things out among themselves, his amusement only growing the longer things remain unresolved.

Bucky himself is sprawled out over one of Stark’s plush couches, his head cradled in Steve’s lap, Steve humming softly as he cards his fingers through Bucky’s hair and scrolls through his phone with his free hand. The light streaming in through the wall of windows behind them brought out the inner feline in Bucky and the moment they’d stepped into the lounge he’d practically carried Steve over to the couch and then laid himself on top of him, staking his claim over the warmest (and therefore best) spot on the entire floor. 

Ostensibly he’s been reading this whole time, finally tackling the stack of books Steve had gotten him for his birthday, but, well. Steve has magic hands and he’s  _ so warm  _ and really it would take superhuman strength to resist the siren song of sleep that’s been calling to him, and the fact that he does actually have superhuman strength is entirely irrelevant, thanks. But it’s not until Steve deftly plucks the book from his lax grip that he realizes he’s been caught out in dozing off.

“‘M awake,” Bucky mumbles, mutinous, as he makes a half-hearted grab for the book, which Steve easily keeps out of his reach simply by raising his hand over his head. Steve’s laughter is always a fucking gift, one Bucky couldn’t take for granted if he tried, but that doesn’t mean he’s ecstatic to hear it now with Steve laughing  _ at him _ .

“You’re maybe twenty-percent awake,” Steve counters, setting the book down (open in order to keep Bucky’s place) on the back of the couch before threading his other hand into Bucky’s hair to join the first and scritching lightly at his scalp, which is — and Bucky admits this shamelessly — fucking  _ rapturous _ . No wonder pets are always demanding it; if Bucky could get away with it he wouldn’t let Steve do anything else for the rest of their lives. But that wouldn’t be  _ productive  _ and  _ we’d have a hell of a time even going to the bathroom, Buck _ , and anyway, it would invite way too many questions about the validity of Bucky’s very threatening reputation and he’d rather not get into that if he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t need  _ certain people  _ thinking it’s okay to cozy up to him just because they no longer think they’ll lose a hand in the process.

“With you yapping in my ear it’s more like fifty-percent.”

Steve huffs a laugh, which deepens with mirth as Bucky turns his head against Steve’s thigh, putting him nose-to-crotch with Steve; Bucky ignores him and burrows further into his lap, snaking an arm around Steve’s waist to pull himself closer.

“I’ve earned my right to use you as a pillow, Rogers, ‘specially now that I don’t gotta worry about smothering you. Don’t even think about arguin’, either.”

“Never, Buck,” Steve says, sliding one hand down over Bucky’s arm, rucking up his short sleeve to rub soothing circles into his skin with his thumb. “I’m not complaining about the promotion. It’s pretty much what I’ve always aspired to be.”

_ Damn right _ , Bucky thinks, and he’s nearly asleep again when he hears the subtle  _ whoosh  _ of the elevator doors opening and the telltale frenetic footsteps just before Tony Stark announces his presence:

“Is something illicit happening in my Tower without me being invited? I think that’s illegal, like, a total breach of contract, or something. On second thought, I’m not sure I want to be involved in this — is this good for Cap’s heart? He’s not too old for this kind of excitement, is he? I really don’t need to have an American icon dying under my roof, the press would have a field day and Pepper’s already got me on a short leash after the whole Ultron thing.”

Bucky stifles a groan, knowing that would only encourage Stark, but he doesn’t immediately roll onto his back, and Steve doesn’t push him into doing it, though his grip on Bucky’s hair tightens for a moment before forcibly relaxing again. 

“Tony,” Steve starts, and Bucky has to roll his eyes at the  _ Captain America is Disappointed In You  _ tone he’s got going on. It’s effective, sure, but hearing it always makes Bucky feel like they’re back on the front, dealing with nosy reporters and shameless cameramen; worse, it reminds him of those  _ god-awful  _ PSAs Steve did when he was fresh out of the ice. Steve can laugh about it now, but Bucky knows how much Steve regrets letting himself get roped into doing them. “You know we’re not doing anything in the  _ lounge _ , of all places, Christ, the kids are ten feet away from us.”

Bucky hears Tony cross the floor, then drop onto the couch opposite them, kicking his feet up onto the glass coffee table in front of him. He might as well face Tony for this; God knows he’s not just going to drop the subject. Sighing, Bucky shifts onto his back but refuses to vacate Steve’s lap completely. He and Steve share a long-suffering look — they both can tell where this conversation is inevitably going to lead.

“We aren’t  _ children _ ,” Pietro scoffs, which would be slightly more believable were he not currently lying upside-down on his own sectional, some handheld gaming system hovering inches from his face. Wanda, beside him, flicks him an irritated glance and twitches her fingers; the game goes flying from Pietro’s hands, to which he yelps and scrambles upright, snatching it out of his sister’s magical grip with lightning-quick reflexes. Bucky’s pretty sure she only allows him to make contact with it out of pity, going by the slight smirk curling her lips as he clutches it dramatically to his chest.

“He is right, unfortunately,” she says, shrugging off his affronted look, “we aren’t children. We are twenty, Steve, not twelve. Not that I would  _ like  _ to see what they get up to behind closed doors.” Her eyes, far too knowing for Bucky’s liking, narrow thoughtfully as they land on Steve and Bucky. “Then again, I can’t imagine it’s anything too…” She hums, head tilting. “Salacious?”

Wanda has, more than once, been inside his head. It was in a professional capacity, so to speak, seeing as she was tasked with ensuring he was actually Bucky Barnes, that he wasn’t operating under some sort of long-con conditioning in order to take out Steve and possibly the rest of the Avengers. The fact that he’s here now proves she saw enough good in him to give him a passing grade (and he’ll always owe her a debt for that, even if she insists she was only doing what she could to amend for her own past) but he’s never sure just how much of him she really saw during their sessions. It wasn’t like he could’ve walled off the parts of his mind he’d prefer she didn’t poke around in.

Now he’s pretty certain she’d gotten a look at his and Steve’s relationship — and, not for the first time, he finds himself grateful there really isn’t anything there that’s too explicit.

“I see someone’s been keeping up with their Sokovian-to-English Word of the Day calendar,” Tony says. “Good word, Little Witch, but I feel like it’s a little too high-brow for our centenarian friends here. Quick question, I probably skipped out on this lesson: Did you two finish high school?”

“Fuck off, Stark,” Bucky groans. Steve’s gone tense beneath him, his hands vanished from Bucky’s hair so there’s no risk of accidentally hurting him.

Tony waves him off. “Okay, too far. But really, that’s the word I’m looking for:  _ fucking _ .”

“ _ Tony _ ,” Steve says again, sharper this time, with a glance towards the twins. Neither of them seem all that ruffled by the turn in conversation but Bucky would prefer they don’t air their not-so-dirty laundry in front of them all the same. 

“What? Mother Russia can say it but I can’t? In my own Tower?”

“ _ Bucky  _ wasn’t using it the same way you are.”

“We’re technically all adults here, Cap, nothing wrong with having some adult conversation. C’mon, I’m curious. Were you two doing the do back in the Dark Ages, or is this a more recent development?”

Another shared look passes between them. Bucky raises a brow; Steve purses his lips, but nods after a moment. Turning back to Tony (who isn’t even bothering to try and hide his impatience), Bucky says, “We’re not fucking, Stark.”

Steve definitely winces at his word choice but it’s Tony’s face that goes absolutely blank for a second, like his brain’s glitched.

“I’m sorry, what?” he says, blinking rapidly. He sits up on the couch, dropping his feet to the floor, and it’s pretty clear this is the first time they’ve gotten his full attention since he walked in. It’d be gratifying if there wasn’t a vein already throbbing on Bucky’s forehead. 

“Are you sure you aren’t the  _ old man _ , Stark?” Pietro asks, smirking. “You should get your hearing checked, yes? He said they aren’t  _ fucking _ .”

Okay, yeah, Wanda definitely caught on to their relationship, and Bucky isn’t the least bit surprised she shared that information with her brother. With her powers they basically share a brain at this point.

“Zip it, Road Runner,” Tony says, barely even glancing at Pietro. “The grown ups are talking.”

“Do you ever not contradict yourself?” Wanda asks, her brow furrowed.

“Only when Pepper’s talking for me. Back to the matter at hand.” Tony gestures expansively at Steve and Bucky’s current position. “Is this just how friendship worked in the forties? Were you all just walking, talking homoerotic subtext?”

Steve’s head drops back against the couch. “You know we’re together, Tony. We’re dating.  _ In love _ . We’re just not having sex.”

That seems to give Tony pause. A momentary pause, but Bucky relishes the silence anyway. “Okay. No sex. So. You’re… what? Asexual? Both of you are asexual?”

“ _ I’m  _ ace,” Bucky corrects. He pats Steve’s chest. “Stevie here is bisexual. Just didn’t have the words for it, before.” Not that it’s any of Tony’s business — but they might as well have this conversation, it’s not like it’s the first time they’ve ever had to explain themselves. That in and of itself drives Bucky up the wall (what does it matter what goes on with them when it has zero effect on anyone else? It didn’t make sense to him in 1937 when he got his head on straight about his own sexuality and it sure as hell doesn’t make any more sense now in 2016), but at least he doesn’t have to explain asexuality for the umpteenth time.

It’s been a while since they’ve been asked outright like this. The last time — Natasha had brought it up, point blank, though not because she couldn’t fathom two people being in a relationship and not fucking. She’d wanted to ask how it worked for them, how they were intimate without sex being involved. As far as Bucky knows, Natasha isn’t ace herself, but her relationship with sex is complicated, to say the least; Bucky only has flashes of their time together in the Red Room, but he knows the type of assignments Natasha would have been sent out on, the seductions she would have been made to carry out. Her body wasn’t her own — nothing about sex for her was willing on her part, not really. 

He hadn’t taken well to the line of questioning, not at first, but as she talked, explaining herself, he understood  _ why  _ she was asking, what it meant to her. Did he think Steve was happy with their arrangement? Did he have doubts about Steve’s love for him? Did  _ Steve  _ have doubts? He answered as honestly as he knew how, more confident than he’d realized when he was speaking for Steve:  _ Steve loves him _ , wholeheartedly, without reservation. Steve doesn’t think of being with Bucky as  _ giving something up _ , he’s not going without and resentful of it. He loves Bucky as he is, and it’s more than enough.

He’d told Natasha as much and she’d gone quiet at the revelation, thoughtful but not in a way that suggested he’d given her some sort of peace of mind — more like he’d left her with more questions than answers. She’d left him alone soon after, thanking him for indulging her curiosity. Bucky couldn’t get it out of his head for a few days, but he didn’t think broaching the subject with her again was a good idea. He thinks, now, she did find what she was looking for, though; he’s seen her and Barton together recently and the tension he’d noted between them seems to have dissipated, at least marginally. He hopes they’ve actually talked — god knows he and Steve would still be walking on eggshells around each other if they’d never learned to fucking communicate.

“Wait, so Rogers here likes sex, and you… don’t.”

“That’s the general idea, yeah,” Steve says.

“But… how does that even  _ work _ ?”

“I’ve gotten real friendly with my right hand,” Steve says, splaying his fingers to demonstrate. Then he lifts his other hand up. “With both hands, actually. Being ambidextrous sure comes in  _ handy _ .”

Wanda and Pietro both boo Steve for the terrible  _ dad joke _ , as they call it (and they’re not wrong, it was a fucking awful pun), while Bucky just laughs at the baffled expression Tony is sporting after that revelation.

“And since you’re asking, we weren’t together in the thirties,” Bucky adds. “Or the forties, really. Steve and Carter were an item for most of the war, that’s not just propaganda, or whatever.”

Bucky won’t admit to anyone besides Steve how much he hated that fact at the time, and even then Steve basically had to pry it out of him. Nearly getting killed at the hands of nazi scientists tends to put things into perspective, and when Steve showed up with his new body and his familiar eyes, Bucky realized that what he felt for his best friend wasn’t  _ friendly  _ in the slightest, despite his lack of sexual attraction. The problem, of course, was that his realization had come a little too late — by then Steve and Peggy were already together, or at least, they’d definitely gotten  _ intimate  _ a few times, and things snowballed from there. 

Bucky wasn’t about to put Steve in a position where he had to choose between them. Back then, Bucky wasn’t even sure he’d come out on top; Steve knew he wasn’t interested in sex, he’d been part of the reason Bucky was even able to accept that about himself, but  _ Steve  _ was sure interested, even if he hadn’t had much practice before the serum. Steve loved him, he never doubted that, but he hadn’t thought Steve could  _ love  _ him when there wouldn’t be a physical component to it.

But, as usual, Steve Rogers lived to defy people’s expectations.

Towards the end, a few months before — well, before the train, Peggy broke things off with Steve, and at the time Bucky couldn’t fathom why she’d done it. He would’ve sworn up and down that she’d never find a man as good as Steve (not that she asked for his opinion, but still), might’ve even gone to shake some sense into her, except. Except Steve told him she had every reason to want to end things, because Steve was in love with someone else. Which baffled the absolute fuck out of Bucky, because he had no idea who it could’ve been. Someone back in Brooklyn? A nurse? Another soldier? One of the  _ Commandos _ ? 

_ “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,”  _ Steve had said when Bucky questioned him. His exasperation came through so clearly Bucky had flashbacks to their younger years where he’d used the exact same tone with Steve for being unbelievably stupid. It didn’t inspire any warm and fuzzy feelings in him being on the receiving end of it.  _ “It’s you, you fuckin’ dunce _ .”

_ “Oh,”  _ Bucky had said, stunned stupid. Or stupider, depending on who you asked.  _ “But… sex?”  _

_ “Bucky, you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever met, and I won’t lie and say I’ve never thought about us together like that. But if you think I need to fuck you to love you, you really did take all the stupid with you that night.”  _

Bucky’s drawn out of his reverie by Tony’s continued squawking, interspersed with Steve’s flat tone, which is a good indicator of how fast his temper is rising. Tony is treading on thin ice, though by the looks of him he’s yet to realize that; he’s still grinning, unrepentant, content in the assumption that Steve is too much of a  _ good two shoes boy scout with a savior complex  _ to use more than words to shut him up. Having been treated to an entire diatribe on the moral failings of the Boy Scouts of America more than once, Bucky thinks Tony has been stewing in the propaganda his own father perpetuated for decades too long to understand how spectacularly he’s misjudged Steve, and he’d be more than happy to point that out to him — except, well. He might have a more entertaining way of cutting this conversation short.

While Tony fends off a well-timed quip from the twins, Bucky takes advantage of the distraction to hook his fingers in the collar of Steve’s shirt, tugging to get his attention. Steve’s expression lightens as he looks down at him, his mouth curling automatically to match the grin Bucky’s sporting. Bucky lifts both brows and, when Steve tilts his head questioningly, he mouths  _ Howard _ and gestures between the two of them. Steve catches on immediately, his eyes glinting with mischief as he leans back into the couch, his shoulders gradually dropping from where they’ve been hiked up around his ears.

As soon as Tony’s turned back around, waving off whatever Pietro’s just said to him, Steve’s features return to the stern glower he’s had for the majority of this conversation.

“Your obsession with my sex life is concerning on a lotta levels, Stark, but mostly because, right now?” he says, before Stark can start in on them again. “You sound  _ exactly  _ like Howard.”

Tony looks as though Steve’s just socked him in the solar plexus, eyes wide and mouth agape. It takes him a few tries to get the words out. “You take that back right the fuck now.”

Still comfortably stretched out across Steve’s lap, Bucky snickers to himself, nonchalant in the face of Tony’s abject horror. “Your dad was  _ reaaaaaal  _ interested in how many times Stevie here could get it up.”

The crass phrasing alone wouldn’t faze Tony, but combined with the insinuation that  _ Howard Stark  _ had been the one to use it first and  _ to their faces _ , it’s enough to drain the rest of the color from Tony’s face and make him look like he’s well on his way to throwing up in the next few seconds. He abruptly stands, raking both hands through his hair as he paces the short distance from one end of the couch to the other. Bucky catches Wanda stifling a laugh into her brother’s shoulder as Tony’s dramatic reaction unfolds before them.

He jabs a finger at Steve, then at Bucky, then again at Steve, like he can’t decide just who he’s more horrified by. Bucky sure isn’t helping, what with the near manic smile he’s not bothering to repress; he remembers,  _ vividly _ , the satisfaction he’d taken from taking Howard to task over the shit he’d caught him saying to Steve, and the familiarity is a warm glow in his chest. Tony is his father’s son, truly, and they’ve never looked more alike to Bucky than right now.

Tony stares at them for another moment, and when it’s clear neither of them plan to apologize, he lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Friday, please tell me I’ve got a meeting or a dinner or a, a  _ dentist appointment _ that I’ve conspicuously forgotten about in my caffeine-fueled haze?”

Friday sounds decidedly unsympathetic (and not a little bit amused) when she replies, “ _ Miss Potts just got in from her flight, Boss. I’ll let her know you’re in need of rescuing. _ ” 

“Well, you heard the lady,” Tony says, clapping his hands together. “My better half awaits. Also, I’m instating a new Tower rule: No discussing sex and my father at the same time. Literally ever. Got it, Friday?”

“ _ Got it, Boss. I also took the liberty of informing Miss Potts on why you were coming to see her, and she’d like to add that the next time you bother Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes with invasive questions, she’s locking you out of the labs for a week _ .”

Tony blinks. Blinks again. “She can’t do that. Can she do that?”

“ _ Looks like she can, Boss. There’s protocol for it and everything _ .”

“Huh. Any chance I can override that?”

“ _ You revoked your own authorization for overriding any commands I receive from Miss Potts that are designated as ‘for your own good’. _ ” 

“Well then. Turns out even my genius has limits.”

“Really?” Wanda questions. “That may be the smartest decision you’ve ever made, Stark.”

Tony rolls his eyes and turns for the elevator. “I’ve had enough from the genetically-engineered peanut gallery today, thanks. Go back to whatever… psychic twin thing you were doing.”

Pietro looks like he’s interested in having the last word (probably by speeding past Tony into the elevator and shutting the doors in his face — which wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened), and while they could use the laugh, Bucky decides he’d rather move on from this for now. He twists onto his side and motions for Pietro to stay seated; Pietro wrinkles his nose in distaste but does as asked, snatching his game from the couch and sinks back down against Wanda’s side, who casts him a faintly amused look and flicks her fingers to float her phone over from the coffee table.

“You good, Stevie?” Bucky murmurs, shifting to sit up so he can lean into Steve, offering what silent support he can. “Starting to regret the sexless heathen lifestyle I’ve forced you into?”

Steve snorts, snaking his arm around Bucky’s waist and pulling him in until their foreheads are resting together. “I know you’re joking, but I’ll never regret getting to be with you, Bucky. You know that.” 

“Sap,” Bucky says, entirely too fond. 

“Like you’re any better when you’re in a mood. But I’m fine. Honest,” Steve adds, anticipating the doubtful arch of Bucky’s brow without even having to see it. “Tony’s… Tony. He’s better when Pepper’s around, at least, or Bruce, someone who knows how to rein him in. There’s nothing he can say we haven’t heard a hundred times, though, nothing we haven’t asked ourselves, y’know? More than anything I just didn’t appreciate being ambushed about this.”

Bucky hums his agreement, drawing back slightly to slink down and rest his head on Steve’s shoulder, careful not to dislodge Steve’s arms from his waist. That he can understand. Even with Natasha Bucky’d felt off-kilter and unappreciative of having their love picked apart for ease of understanding. But Steve is right — it’s nothing they haven’t heard before. And it doesn’t change anything for them in the slightest.

“Think we should tell Stark that I sometimes just start laughing when you get a boner around me?”

“ _ Bucky _ ,” Steve groans, despairing, but Bucky would bet anything he’s biting back a smile.

“It’s true! And you get all red and flustered about it despite knowin’ I’ve seen you buck-ass naked more times than I can count. You act like you’re gonna scare me off with the size of your—”

Steve clamps a hand over his mouth. He contemplates licking his palm, but decides against it on the grounds that he can’t remember the last time Steve washed his hands. Besides, it’s not like it would deter Steve any; he’s still that spitfire kid when it comes down to it, and more to the point, he’s just gross sometimes. Although Steve would argue that having someone else’s tongue in your mouth is, objectively, much grosser than licking another person’s hand, and Bucky has no problems with  _ that _ , so. Best to just let it go uncontested for now.

“We’re not saying any of that to Tony. Okay?” Steve waits for Bucky to nod, then waits a little more, gauging whether or not Bucky’s telling the truth. He must figure it’s in Bucky’s best interests never to have that conversation with Tony, because he drops his hand and instead threads it into Bucky’s hair again, eliciting a quiet noise of pleasure from Bucky that absolutely fucking  _ delights  _ Steve. “Don’t know why anyone would think I’m not gettin’ my fill out of this relationship,” he murmurs, tugging gently on Bucky’s hair for another soft sound that Bucky’s all too happy to give up. “You’re perfect, Buck. Always have been.”

Bucky smothers a smile against Steve’s neck. “Sweet talker.”

“Just telling the god’s honest truth, pal, nothing sweet about it.”

“The old men are being gross,” Bucky hears Pietro stage-whisper, which ruins the moment a little, he won’t lie, but he’s sure as hell going to get embarrassed over it, not even when Wanda agrees (at a normal volume) and announces she and Pietro are leaving before Steve starts reciting terrible poetry about Bucky’s hair. Steve laughs them off, but he also squeezes Bucky a little tighter, and Bucky can feel the warmth of his flush where his face is pressed against Steve’s skin. Bucky just grins, unbothered.

“Love you, Stevie,” he says, once he’s relatively certain the twins are in the elevator.

“Love you, too, Buck.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
